Teaching

The 21st century requires new fluencies…

John has the rare privilege of teaching at two of the world’s finest universities: one public (the University of California Berkeley) and the other private (Princeton University). This gives him a chance to engage, challenge, and inspire some of the brightest and most talented graduate and undergraduate students around.

“John is engaging, thought-provoking, and inspiring. . .he captivates our class largely on his ability to synthesize a multiplicity of ideas and stimulate great discussion.” —Student at UC Berkeley

…at Berkeley

John, Senior Fellow, Berkeley-Haas School of Business, teaches in several programs at UC Berkeley:

Haas School of Business: John teaches a portfolio of innovation and entrepreneurship MBA courses, including two courses he started—“Workshop for Startups” and “The Other ‘F’ Word: Failure & Its Significance”

Undergraduate: John designed the campus-wide interdisciplinary course on “Entrepreneurship To Address Global Poverty”with support from the Blum Center for Developing Economies

John’s biggest reward comes from students’ after-graduation reports of what they are doing with their time and talents, some of which they graciously connect to their experiences in his classes.

…at Princeton

Several years ago, John was invited to serve as the Dean’s Professor in Entrepreneurship, an annual award by The Keller Center in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton. That initial appointment has now turned into an annual visiting professorship which brings him East every fall.
John recently launched a widely popular interdisciplinary course on “Ventures To Address Global Challenges,” a freshman seminar on US health and entrepreneurship (with support from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation), a team-taught campus wide introductory course on entrepreneurship, and an extracurricular “Idea Factory” for aspiring entrepreneurs.

…and in Executive Education

Leading—a project, team, strategy, or organization—has never been easy. It’s not getting easier as the pace of change accelerates, new technologies appear, work forces become more diverse, and stakeholder expectations intensify.
To do their jobs well, leaders must deepen their understanding as well as refresh and expand their repertoire. That’s where John frequently comes in–as teacher, moderator, and orchestrator of executive education programs.

John’s work with executives in the US…

UCBerkeley Center for Executive Education: John serves as Faculty Director for a changing mix of intensive programs focused on various leadership challenges–innovation, organizational change, intra- and entrepreneurship and strategy

Aspen Institute: As a Senior Moderator of the Aspen Seminar, John has conducted programs in values-based leadership for hundreds of senior executives across the business, nonprofit and governmental landscape

Federal Executive Institute: John has anchored leadership workshops for high-level officials working in dozens of agencies of the federal government

Other: John frequently designs and delivers customized leadership-development programs for various clients, from global enterprises to industry groups

…and around the world

In the past few years, John has conducted these kinds of executive training seminars for individuals and teams from China, Korea, Indonesia, India, Russia, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Chile and many countries in Europe–across a wide array of settings and for various industries including international trade, healthcare, energy, communications, finance, entertainment, government, shipping, natural resources, education and technology.